The tomb is (not) empty: Easter Sermon from Jerusalem, 2018
Easter Sunrise Sermon 2018
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer,
Jerusalem
Preached on the Mt. of Olives
The Rev. Carrie Ballenger Smith
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The grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be
with you all.
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| Easter Sunrise on the Mt of Olives, 2018 Photo by Ben Gray/ELCJHL |
We knew and
loved my Grandma Goldie, so we came expecting a huge organizational—and emotional—task.
But at some point as Mom and I were going through Grandma’s collections of knick-knacks,
I found something I didn’t expect. High up on a shelf, hidden behind an artificial
plant, I saw a flash of hot pink. It made me smile as soon as I saw it, because
I knew exactly what it was.
It was a plastic
Easter egg.
The thing
is, my brother is almost 5 years younger than I am, which put him at a
disadvantage for our family’s annual Easter egg hunts. I also was (and still
am!) an expert finder of lost things, so I could collect a basketful of eggs in
just a few minutes, leaving my little brother holding an empty basket, tears streaming
down his face. So one year, to make things a bit fairer, the adults started writing
our names on the eggs. The rule was, if I found one that said “CARL” I was
supposed to put it back for him to find. Only the ones that said “CARRIE” could
go in my basket. (I seem to remember that Carl eventually just started following
me around and picking up the ones I put back! Smart kid.)
Now, all
these years later, I reached up and removed a hot pink plastic Easter egg from my
Grandma’s knick-knack shelf and saw that it had “CARRIE” written on it in black
Sharpie. Since it had my name on it, I cracked it open and saw…that it was
empty.
And this
made me very confused.
I thought:
How could this be? Maybe my grandma hid an empty egg? That didn’t seem like
her.
Maybe it contained
a marshmallow peep that just evaporated after thirty years?
Maybe someone
else found it, ate the Tootsie Roll out of it, and then put the egg back on the
shelf! Scandalous!
Or maybe,
one day when she was cleaning, my Grandma Goldie found it, thought of me,
and put it back, for me to find one day.
As I stood
there holding that empty egg, I realized it wasn’t empty at all.
It was full of
memories—of Easter ham and mashed potatoes, of new Easter dresses with matching
hats, and of hymns like “Lift High the Cross” and “I Know that My Redeemer
Lives”, which we sang every Easter at the Swedish Lutheran church across the
street.
That little plastic
egg, which had at first seemed empty, was in reality full of my Grandma’s love
for me. And it was full of her love for Jesus, which she passed on to me.
So I snapped
it back shut, and put it in my pocket.
Now, when Mary,
Salome, and the other Mary got up early to attend to Jesus’ body on that first
Easter morning, they thought they knew what to expect, too. Although Jesus had
told the disciples several times how he would “suffer, and die, and on the third
day be raised”, the women fully expected to find the body of their beloved Jesus
in the tomb that morning. They bought special spices they expected to use for
anointing his body. The Gospel according to Mark even tells us what they were
talking about on the way to the tomb—and it was not a theological discussion
about whether or not the Father would raise Jesus from the dead. It was, “Who
will roll the stone away from the tomb for us?”
In other words,
they expected a stone.
They
expected a body.
They
expected death.
But when
they arrived, the women encountered something wholly unexpected.
They saw
that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled away from the
tomb, and the tomb was empty.
Alleluia,
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!
To be honest,
I don’t really love the Easter story as told by Mark. I don’t love the way the
women are portrayed in this account of the Resurrection (first of all, they don’t
plan ahead for someone to move that stone for them, and then at the end of the
story, Mark says they failed to share the Good News, most likely because women
were not seen as worthwhile witnesses. This is not exactly a feminist text. But
that’s a sermon for another day…)
Most of all,
I dislike how Jesus makes no appearance at all in Mark’s version of the
resurrection story. I mean, this is Easter. Give me some angels, not some guy
in a white dress! Give me an earthquake and some lightning! Give me some Jesus,
not some old empty cave! Amen!
But listen, as
the man in white said: “Do not be
alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been
raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place where they laid him.”
Some details may differ, but the empty tomb appears
in all four Gospels, and for good reason:
The empty tomb
is the ultimate sign that what Jesus had prophesied is true: that he is risen
from the dead.
The tomb did
not, and could not, contain Jesus for long!
The tomb did
not, and could not, bury God’s love for us!
So yes, the
tomb is empty--
It is empty
of death.
It is empty
of despair.
But it is full
of something else: It is full of hope!
The tomb of
Jesus is full of hope, for there is no situation in life which God cannot
transform for the good! Amen!
The tomb is
full of hope, because we never have to settle for things as they are. God is always
making things new! Amen!
The tomb is
full of hope, because goodness is stronger than evil! Amen!
The tomb is full
of hope, because death never has the last word! Amen!
And the tomb
of Jesus, which the women found empty, is also full of love—the love of the
Father for the Son, and the love of God for the world, a love which we have
come to know through Christ’s suffering on the cross, with us and for us.
Thanks be to God.
My dear siblings
in Christ,
This has been
one heck of a Lenten season.
It started off with a bang—and I mean that
literally—with the shooting deaths of 17 students and teachers at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School on Ash Wednesday.
And the season
culminated on Good Friday, which also happened to be Land Day here in Palestine.
As we were remembering the crucifixion of Jesus, walking the Via Dolorosa here
in Jerusalem, at least 16 Palestinians were being killed by IDF forces near the
Gaza border.
I can’t stop
thinking about those 17 who died in their school in my home country,
And of those
16 who died while protesting, while praying, even while running away, trying to
protect the hope of simply having a home country.
Lent always
begins with ashes and ends with the cross, but this year, the reality of sin, violence,
death, and our human brokenness seems especially heavy, and especially predictable.
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| Worshipers at the Easter Sunrise service 2018 Photo by Ben Gray/ELCJHL |
I understand
if you came expecting more of the same from the world, and from the church.
I understand
if you, like Mary and Mary and Salome, came to worship feeling empty, and you are
just going through the motions:
Because this
is what we do on Easter Sunday,
Because this
is what we do when someone we love dies,
Because this
is what we do when the world seems to be falling apart.
But dear people,
hear the Good News of Easter:
God has seen
our broken hearts,
God has seen
our broken promises,
God has seen
our broken societies,
God has even
seen the broken body of the Son, Jesus—a body broken by our sin—and God has done
something completely unexpected:
In great
love, God has raised Jesus from the tomb, and has raised us to new life with
him. Thanks be to God, the tomb is empty! He is risen! Amen!
But in this difficult
time, when so many feel empty already,
hear me when
I say that the empty tomb of Jesus is not the absence of anything.
It is the
presence of God’s love for you.
It is the presence
of resurrection hope.
It is the
presence of salvation for a broken world and for broken people.
It is the presence
of healing, of wholeness, and of new beginnings.
It is the
presence of peace with justice for every nation.
It is the
presence of life, and life abundant, for all of God’s creation.
When I think
of the empty tomb today, and all that it means for followers of Jesus, I can’t
help but think about that plastic Easter egg I found in my Grandma’s house—the
one that appeared to be empty, but was full of so much love:
The one with
my name on it.
On this
Easter morning, I invite you to think of the empty tomb of Jesus as a precious,
unexpected gift, with your name written on it.
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| Some of the Redeemer community enjoying the sunrise after worship Easter morning 2018, Mt of Olives Photo by Ben Gray/ELCJHL |
In
Scripture,
in bread and wine,
and in the
company of fellow believers,
here in Jerusalem,
and wherever two or there are gathered in his name.
Thanks be to
God! And so, with all the saints on earth and in heaven, let us proclaim once
again:
Alleluia, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Alleluia, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, Alleluia!
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